Part 1 covers Ivy Rowe’s early days as a child growing up in Sugar Fork, Virginia. While Ivy’s letters are not dated, dates from later in her story suggest that she was born sometime in the early 1900s. She has sisters named Beulah, Ethel, and Silvaney and brothers named Babe, Victor, Garnie, Johnny, and Danny.

At around nine years old, Ivy first takes up writing at the suggestion of her schoolteacher, Mrs. Brown, and starts doing so with a “Pen Friend” who lives in Europe. Ivy continues to write as a form of self-expression and self-exploration, and in this section, she writes letters to her “Pen Friend” Hanneke, Mrs. Brown and her niece, and members of her family, including her estranged grandfather and dead father.

In Ivy’s first letter, addressed to Hanneke, she shares a great deal of information about her background. In rambling, stream-of-consciousness prose, Ivy tells Hanneke about how her parents got together and how beautiful Sugar Fork is. She observes, “I am glad I have set this all down for I can see my Momma and Daddy as young, and laghing. This is not how they are today” (7). Ivy continues by listing off the people she knows, particularly her siblings, including her relationships to and opinions of them, and then explains how her family makes a living.